Interview: Asbjørn (DK)

Our local pop-talent Asbjørn, has won the hearts of the Germans. They love him. Most recently he played the Berlin-sessions, which has also included artists like Local Natives, The Vaccines and Jens Lekman. During November / December, Asbjørn will be touring in the larger German cities Dresden, Nürnberg, Munich and Berlin.

With only 20 years behind him, Asbjørn has already achieved an impressive music-career. Most recently he played at one of the bigger German festivals – Berlin Festival. The reason for his success seems to be the young artists confident and passionate live-performances, his electronic synth-pop, with a hint of Nordic melancholy that gives you an urge to dance.

Many online have praised Asbjørn’s music; one of the praises comes from the Berlin based blog, Nordic by Nature, who promotes Scandinavian music in Germany. They named him artist of the week, just after the release of his debut album “Sunken Ships”, which was released last year.

But what is next for young Asbjørn? He definitely has a busy time ahead of him, with his upcoming live-shows around Germany, and an appearance in a 3D movie to celebrate the late Claude Nobs, who founded the Montreux Jazz Festival. Hopefully he will have time to stop by for a performance in Denmark, so we can get to enjoy the music from one of our youngest and quickest rising stars.

Asbjørns music is available on iTunes, Spotify, TDC Play and WiMP. You can go check out his website: www.asbjornmusic.com, where you can buy his 2012 album ”Sunken Ships”, and find upcoming live-dates.

[chat question=”Can we expect a new album in the near future?“]
January 2014. Got some real treats for you. It’s not the typical three-singles-and-an-album kind of release. I think a lot of artists right now are testing and playing around with the structures of the music industry, including the album format, which has a hard time surviving in the more single-minded music consumerism today. I am one of those artists!
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[chat question=”Are you working on any exciting projects at the moment?“]
Apart from producing the new music, I’ve been touring in Germany with my band and we are already going back in November on a 10 day tour. Something I really enjoy about that is the contrast between the euphoric and social energy of playing live, to the very introvert process in the studio. It seems like those two worlds couldn’t exist without each other. A lot of projects are being made around the next release, spot it by the #pseudo hashtag on the social platforms!
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[chat question=”Why do you think your music has been so well received in Germany?“]

It is still early days, you know, but yes; I’ve been very fortunate to get some pretty important showcases, recently in the Berlin Music Week and of course at the Berlin Festival, which was a wild experience.

I guess Germany just contains a lot of subcultures that, because of the size of the country, are not minorities in any way. That gives them a huge power to choose for themselves what they think is popmusic or popculture in general. Somehow I have fitted into one of those subcultures and become more pop than I am considered in Denmark at this stage.[/chat]

[chat question=”How do you feel about your German success?“]
It’s the most wonderful thing to be welcomed that way in a foreign country, especially because we didn’t plan it at all. The interest sort of just came out of nowhere; we hadn’t even made promo activities, so we had to just take a chance. Anyhow Denmark is too small to really get busy in, if you don’t get that mainstream success instantly, so crossing borders is a very natural thing for me to do. I just want to make art and be able to fill my life with it.[/chat]

[chat question=”Will there be any live-shows in Denmark in the near future?“]
Right now my main focus is on making the new material. The German tour is an exception ‘cause really I should just be working non-stop in the studio. But I promise that I’ll be back on Danish stages in 2014.
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